We have all seen anime. All, without exception. “No, I’m 60 years old, that makes me old,” no, Jose Miguel, that’s not the case. You’ve also seen anime. You’ve probably seen ‘Arupusu no Shōjo Haiji’, ‘Haha o Tazunete Sanzenri’ or ‘Majingā Zetto’. As? Don’t they sound familiar to you? Wait, maybe if I tell you that you’ve seen ‘Heidi’, ‘Marco’ or ‘Mazinger Z’ things will be different.
Japanese animation is much more influential than we think. It is, in fact, a multi-billion dollar industry. The Japanese entertainment industry (video games, anime and manga) annually exports content worth 4.7 trillion yen, about 27,734 million euros. We are talking about an industry that falls just short of semiconductors (5.7 trillion yen) and steel (5.1 trillion). The reasons? Several.
PS: The series on these lines is ‘Sakamoto Days’ and it premieres next year. The manga is already in serialization and it is very worthwhile.
Post-pandemic growth. COVID-19 locked us all in and there were many of us who took refuge in anime. In fact, if significant growth has been noted from 2020 to now and, more specifically, from 2021-2022 to today, it is not our business. The data is there.
As detailed in the Anime Industry Report 2023 of the Association of Japanese Animation (AJA), “the anime industry market in 2022 reached 106.8% of the previous year, which had then been the highest recorded, with an increase of 185.5 billion yen.” Between 2013 and 2022, the industry grew by 198%, which is said to be fast. By 2023, the industry had grown to three trillion (trillion, yes) yen.
go outside. The international market has been capital for this growth. The AJA describes it as “the engine of this evolution”, and it is no wonder. In addition, streaming platforms have launched to broadcast anime, from Netflix to HBO, through Prime Video and even Disney+. Yes, Crunchyroll already existed, the mecca for those of us who enjoy this genre, but the reality is that Crunchy, AnimeBox and company are not as popular and massive as… Netflix, without going any further.
Satoru Gojo, character from ‘Jujutsu Kaisen’ (and owner of my heart) | Image: MAPPA
To get an idea of how important the international market has been for the anime industry, a couple of facts. In 2013, the international market generated 283.3 billion yen. In 2019, the year of the pandemic, the figure was 1.2 billion. In 2023, it has been almost 1.5 billion. If we add the rest of the entertainment, namely manga and video games, the figure stands at 4.7 trillion yen that we mentioned previously.
What does that mean? That the international market is so, so important for the anime industry that only 9.3 billion yen, 0.6%, separates it from the domestic market. The culprit that locals win, by the way, is live entertainment, an industry that Japan intends to exploit but whose plans were effectively thwarted by COVID-19, according to the aforementioned report.
‘DanDaDan’ is one of the animes that is hitting the hardest right now, and with good reason. It’s very silly, but really fun | Image: Netflix
The future. Japan is one of the ten largest economies in the world, but it is also one of the countries with the most debt. Specifically, 1,300 billion yen. 7,836,751,000,000 euros or 130.6 times what Microsoft paid for Activision Blizzard, in case it helps us get a better idea. What industry is growing by leaps and bounds and has the potential to help reduce that number? Indeed, the anime.
Under the Cool Japan strategy, the Japanese country intends to turn its entertainment industry into the engine of its economy. The government intends to expand the market to 20 trillion yen (118 billion euros), thus surpassing the 13 trillion generated by the motor industry. This strategy also includes everything related to Japanese culture, such as gastronomy, fashion or tourism. Overall, Cool Japan aims to generate 50 trillion yen, almost 300 billion euros, by 2033.
‘Chainsaw Man’ is one of those animes that start from a very basic premise, but when it gets going it becomes very interesting | Image: Espinof
Un win-win. That streaming platforms have launched to publish anime is no coincidence. The public demands it and brings subscribers. The anime goes further, the platforms benefit, win-win.
Netflix is, without a doubt, the platform mainstream that is betting the most on the genre with titles like ‘Cyberpunk: Edgerunners’, ‘Hunter X Hunter’, ‘DanDaDan’, ‘Baki Hanma’, ‘Naruto’, ‘Ranma 1/2’, ‘One Piece’ from Egghead, ‘Haikyiuu!’, ‘Blue Eye Samurai’, ‘Pluto’ and ‘Jujutsu Kaisen’, among other titles. It also has the live action of ‘One Piece’ which, in some way, has helped evangelize Oda’s work to the uninitiated.
Prime Video also has goodies, like ‘Spy x Family’, ‘Kimetsu no Yaiba’, ‘My Hero Academia’, ‘Dragon Ball Super’ and ‘Attack on Titan’. In the Disney+ catalog there are some interesting titles, such as ‘Bleach’, ‘Tokyo Revengers’, the ‘Sand Land’ series and ‘Summer Time Render’. Max, for his part, has been left somewhat behind and the most powerful thing, which is the recent anime adaptation of ‘Uzumaki’, started very strong (and so much, what an outrage), but after the first episode, a whole exercise in how to animate a manga, the series has gone downhill and without brakes.
‘Attack on Titan’ is mandatory. It has a couple of script twists that leave you upside down and the plot is very interesting. The ending, however, is more debatable | Image: MAPPA
Not everything is pink. Although the anime industry is experiencing a kind of golden age, the reality behind the scenes is complex. Anime is like science: you don’t do it, you have to do it. You have to draw, animate, and that is not something that everyone knows how to do. There is a shortage of qualified workers, which makes sense when we consider that salaries are low.
A new animator starts as a “genga man”, that is, the one who draws the intermediate frames, the connections between the keyframes. His salary in 2019 was equivalent to $12,000 annually, according to the New York Times, citing an AJA report. That figure doesn’t take into account freelancers, who can charge even less. For some, the salary is as little as $200 a month. A well-paid animator earns an average of $40,000 per year, nothing like the $65-75,000 earned by a renowned American animator, for example.
According to The Asashi Shimbun, there are only 6,000 animators in Japan and many of them “leave due to poor working conditions.” “The average salary for animators is around 1,300 yen per hour, well below the average of 2,400 yen for all industries,” the outlet states. In other words, a Japanese animator barely charges eight euros per hour.
‘Dragon Ball Daima’ is the latest and is being liked a lot | Image: Netflix
A structural problem. The origin of this problem is the industry itself, which prevents money from reaching the studios. As explained by The Asashi Shimbun citing information from the Japanese Research Institute (JRI), “(anime) production companies received only 18% of domestic anime sales in 2022 and only 6% of foreign sales” . Most of the income goes to companies dedicated to planning, creating original content, marketing, broadcasting and streaming, they say.
In the words of Yosuke Yasui, senior researcher at JRI, “many companies are barely operating, leading them to accept unfavorable contract terms and trapping them in a cycle of low profits.” Additionally, the number of young people wanting to work in the industry is so high that studios can stay afloat without having to raise salaries.
‘Kaiju No. 8’ is currently one of the pillars of Shonen Jump and its anime is very good. The animation is very cool and the plot, although predictable, is worth it | Image: Crunchyroll
Karoshi. It is a term that means “death from overwork” and is relatively common in the world of anime and manga. It is an industry in which crunch and marathon days are the order of the day. There are many cases, but one of the most recent is that of Kentaro Miura, author of ‘Berserk’. He died at the age of 54 due to an acute aortic dissection caused by stress and overwork.
Eiichiro Oda, author of ‘One Piece’, went through a difficult 2023. ‘One Piece’ has 1,130 episodes, it is a work to which the author has dedicated his life and that takes its toll. In 2023, Oda acknowledged that he was in constant contact with his doctor, to whom he sent his blood pressure data every day. According to her doctor, she was too tall. In March 2024, with the Egghead arc in full swing, Oda ended up taking a rare three-week break.
Most manga and anime episodes are released on a weekly basis, hence the brutal delivery times.
These are just a couple of examples, but if something characterizes the manga and anime industry, it is the short delivery times. Let’s not forget that most manga chapters, with about 15-20 pages each, are released on a weekly basis, just like anime episodes.
About 10,000 people die each year from this Karoshi, which also accounts for a third of the annual suicides in Japan.
‘Solo Leveling’ is not a manga, it is a manwha (from South Korea) and its anime was so anticipated that, when it premiered, it managed to knock down Crunchyroll | Image: Crunchyroll
IA. Faced with this situation (yearning for growth, increases in production volume, lack of labor, low salaries and absurd deadlines), the industry is looking with some interest at generative artificial intelligence, a technology that could relax certain aspects of animation. . Not without controversy, obviously.
K&K Design, a studio in Nagoya, has integrated AI into its workflow and, according to the company, has made processes that previously took a week now take just five minutes. Orange, another Japanese company in Tokyo, is using AI to speed up translation. According to KrAsia, only 14,000 of the 700,000 manga that exist have been translated into English, let alone Spanish. The Japanese government itself is urging studios to implement AI in the industry since “generative AI can contribute to creativity in many aspects of content production.”
And to conclude, a recommendation:
You have to see ‘One Piece’.
Cover image | Toei Animation
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